Technology Bytes

One of our listeners (Ryan Hay) has taken some audio samples from the show and put them together in to an auto-tuned montage. The result is, well…interesting.

Michael outdated by rhay777

All right. The summer is continuing to heat up, but so is the list of available geeky summer activities. Things get underway with the Houston Super Secret Science Club meetup, happening tomorrow night at 6:45 PM at the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University. Unless that was supposed to be a secret… Well, the cat gut is out of the bag, as it were, because the Super Secret Scientists aim to explore the mind through music tomorrow night as they get together to attend a number of talks hosted by Rice University.

Reservations aren’t required and seating is first-come-first-serve. The Club will be meeting outside of room 1131 at 6:45 PM, where you’ll want to track down the head secret scientist, Steve. Over the course of three hours, attendees will choose between two sets of talks, one geared toward science, and the other geared more toward music.

Some of the science talks include Amy Hoover’s “Functional Scaffolding: A New Principle for Enabling Computational Creativity in Music”, John Iversen’s “Neural Dynamics of Beat Perception” and Rebecca Lepping’s “Development of a Validated Emotionally Provocative Musical Stimuli Set for Neuroimaging Studies of Depression”. Guy Madison will take a look at some rhythmic properties of Music that are correlated with groove – or the tendency for music to induce movement. Michael Schutz will examine the benefits of moving to the beat while listening to music, and Sherman Wilcox will spend some time looking for the link between Music and Sign Language.

Back on the music side of the school, in room 1133, Benjamin Anderson will talk about the fact that Elton John can write a song in less time than it takes most of us to make a sandwich when he addresses “Schemata and Elton John’s computational practice”.

If you feel the need to Crocodile Rock out, you may want to attend “Negentropy for solo flute: A compositional and perceptual study using variable form,” featuring flutist Izumi Miyahara. You can then follow that up with Shannon Layman’s talk on “Differentiating Rock from Bach” and how the identification of mainstream recordings requires only brief excerpts. Shazam!

All in all, it sounds like a solid night of science and music for both Tiny Dancers and Rocketmen, alike. For details and directions, surf to meetup.com/Houston-Secret-Science-Club. Of course, if the secrecy of the site proves to be impenetrable, or if you just can’t get the hyphens right, you can hit music.rice.edu, too.

If anyone does attend, please ask them how to purge all of these Elton John songs from my subconscience. Seriously… Please, don’t let the sun go down on me with “Candle in the wind” stuck in my head.

That’s just about as scary to me as Linux Kernel Internals may be to some of you. And while my situation may be hopeless, yours certainly isn’t. At least with the help of TxRx Labs and this Saturday’s three hour class designed to give you an Introduction to Linux Kernel Programming. The class takes on Linux kernel development with an eye towards creating your own kernel module or device driver and towards tricks and tools of the trade to make interacting with the Linux kernel development community go smoothly.

Hit www.txrxlabs.org for registration information on the last in their first summer series of classes.

If this scenario still sounds a little nightmarish to you, then you’re nearly fully prepared for Apollocon, Houston’s Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Conference, taking place at the end of the month at the Houston Intercontinental Airport Double Tree Hotel. In addition to the strong Sci-Fi, fantasy and horror fare, KD5 and I will be hosting a panel on the Maker Movement, as well as a two-hour workshop aimed at the Arduino. We’ll be providing the code and the kits, while attendees are asked to bring a laptop, an Arduino, and the necessary cable to connect them. If you’re new to the world of Physical computing, this workshop will give you the knowledge to make stuff move, blink and and make sound. Hit www.apollocon.org for details, directions and con registration information.

And lastly, we have a very special Geek Gathering coming up in July. Our Sweet Sixteen Party is taking place on July 1st, and even though we’re keeping things quiet, attendees are invited to Geek, Nerd or Schoolgirl it up.

We’ll have more details next week, but for now, that’s it for the passing of the Elton John & Con Batons and that’s that for BarretTime.

Bonus behind the scenes video from inside the studio!

Technology Bytes Podcast for June 8, 2011 Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Allright.

We’ve been on a BarretTime hiaitus the last three weeks, but I’m back with a couple of activities to keep you busy until the next Geek Gathering rolls around.

If you find yourself too caught up in the digital world and are in need some time to get back in touch with your softer side, you can head over to TxRx Labs this Sunday, June 12th, to take their two hour intro to painting class. The class explores the fundamentals of the materials and techniques of painting. Multiple mediums and styles will be discussed, along with proper storage procedures.

Also taking place this Sunday from 3:30 to 6:30 PM at TxRx Labs is an electronics workshop.

This lab provides electronics enthusiasts access to TX/RX Lab’s professional electrical engineers to assist in completing and trouble shooting their projects. Participants can use TX/RX’s fully outfitted electronics workshop to work on their project while being able to obtain guidance and aid from experts with decades of expertise in electronics design and construction. Participants may also use this time to get instruction on advanced techniques in soldering, troubleshooting, and the use of electronics test equipment.

Both classes require a small tuition fee that can be taken care of online at www.txrxlabs.org/classes/

Swinging back to the free side of things:

If you’re an existing Android developer or are interested in taking the first few steps down that path, you’re in luck. Houston’s first Android Developers Meetup is taking place on the evening of Tuesday, June 28th, at the Zebec Center near Westheimer and Fountainview.

The Houston Android Developers Meetup (or HADM, as I will refer to it for the remainder of the segement) will hold their inaugural meetup to delve into the new Arduino offerings that allow Android Developers to tap into the physical world when writing applications for their Android smartphones. I’ve got a board on order from Seeed Studios, so regardless of whether or not we GETM before HADM does, we’ll hopefully HAVM out at the July Geek Gathering.

If you’re unfamiliar with the Arduino platform, but want to remedy that before HADM meets, you may want to stop by Apollocon the weekend of June 24th for a crash course workshop on the subject. David Brummel and I will be hosting a panel on the Maker Movement and then following that up with a two hour workshop workshop focused on building things with the Arduino platform. Participants are asked to bring their own Arduino, USB cable and laptop to the workshop, where they’ll spend two hours working through nine mini-projects that David and I designed.

Seating space for the Arduino Workshop is limited, so you’ll want to reserve your spot early by surfing to www.apollocon.org. Apollocon, Houston’s own Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror Convention, is actually offering a Geek Track in addition to its more traditional fare catering to writers and readers of sci-fi and fantasy. Hit www.apollocon.org for registration info as well as a listing of the con’s other events.

Also taking place on June 24th from 8:00 AM to 4:00 PM at the American Society for Training and Development, Houston. The conference, while aimed primarily at individuals involved with training in their organization, includes topics of wide appeal, such as Cloud Computing, Second Life, Serious Gaming, Shooting video for training, and much more. They Keynote is titled, “Mobile Learning and the Mobile OS Wars: How to Avoid Getting Caught in the Crossfire”, which shows the slant the day’s events. For registration info, hit www.astdhouston.org and for the Houston Android Developers Meetup, surf to www.meetup.com or hit the geekradio website post-show for a full list of links.

That’s it for your summer session sylabus and that’s that for BarretTime.